Short's Decision Still Rankles

11 November 2013 01:36

He's made the great divide from Northern Ireland to Southern Ireland .

. but Martin O'Neill still has a gripe with Sunderland.

Black Cats owner Ellis Short's decision to dispense with his services and appoint Paolo Di Canio still rankles with Martin O'Neill, and the former Northern Ireland international remains convinced he would have kept the club in the Barclays Premier League, and might still be there now.

He said: "I was disappointed, of course, at Sunderland, disappointed not to have completed the season.

"I think, really, if I look at it, although nothing is certain in football, that given 20 years of reasonable success in the game, I would have accumulated the five points necessary from the last seven games to have stayed up.

"So yes, I was disappointed because it was a club that I grew up supporting as a boy - not that that makes a great deal of difference in this managerial game - but for the opportunity not to be afforded to us to see the job through.

"I'm quite sure if that had been the case that I may well have been managing the team right now."